hen you are shopping for
the holidays, remember your
community and support your locally
owned independent businesses.
When you do, more of the dollars you
spend remain in the local community
compared to big box and chain stores.

â&#x20AC;˘ It keeps dollars in our economy. For every
$100 a consumer spends, local businesses
give back $68 to the local economy, chain
stores only give back $43.
â&#x20AC;˘ It makes us unique. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no place like
the Peninsula! Homegrown businesses are
part of what makes us special.

â&#x20AC;˘ It creates local jobs. Local businesses are the
Local merchants know the
best at creating higher-paying jobs for our
community and are experts in
neighbors.
selecting merchandise that is based
on what you like and want. Shop with â&#x20AC;˘ It helps the environment. Buying locally
saves transportation fuel. Plus you get
awareness. In a down economy with
products that you know are safe and
many businesses at risk, you are voting
well made, because our neighbors stand
with your dollars. If you value a diverse
behind them.
local economy, choose to support
â&#x20AC;˘ It nurtures our community. Studies show
these and other independent, locally
that local businesses donate to community
owned businesses.

Here are some good reasons to
shop at locally owned businesses this
holiday season and all year:

causes at more than twice the rate of chains.

â&#x20AC;˘ It conserves tax dollars. Spending locally
ensures that your sales taxes are reinvested
where they belong, right here in your
community.

www.hometownpeninsula.org
This message is brought to you by Hometown Peninsula, an alliance of locally-owned
independent businesses. We strive to maintain our unique community character, to educate local
residents that purchasing locally creates a strong local economy and bring back the vibrant
hometown to our communities that is being displaced by national chains and online stores.

www.PaloAltoOnline.com
A full version of The year in
quotes and Oddities and ends
— Palo Alto weird news of 2009
can be viewed at Palo Alto Online.

Local news, information and analysis

Newsmakers of the year: 2009

Outstanding individuals and groups leave their mark on the community during a trying year
by Carol Blitzer,
Sue Dremann, Chris Kenrick
and Gennady Sheyner

Community of the year
After suicides, Gunn High
School walks a delicate line

G

unn High School’s wrestlers
won a 32-team tournament
last week. Some seniors got
news of early college acceptances
or rejections. The school earned a
ranking on U.S. News & World Report’s 2010 list of America’s top 100
public high schools.
Life goes on for the 1,898 students at Gunn even as they mourn
the numbing loss of four classmates
who died by suicide this year at the
Caltrain tracks.
For seven months, the Gunn staff
has walked a fine line between maintaining the rigors and rich offerings

Shawn Fender

T

he Palo Alto Weekly’s Newsmakers of the Year have shaped
and influenced Palo Alto’s residents, and the city itself, in 2009.
They range from the most popular
social-networking company in the
history of the Internet to a highschool community that responded
to tragedy with an outpouring of
compassion.
Theirs are the actions that created the news. Some stepped up to a
challenge that was thrust upon them.
Others sought to put their stamp on
the world and carved out their own
niche.
They include Palo Alto’s new
chief of police, a coalition-building
city councilwoman and a controversial high-school principal. There
are residents who took aim at fixing
perceived wrongs. The newsmakers
include developers, city workers,
companies large and small, a nonprofit organization and students.
Theirs are the impacts that are likely to last well into the future, from
Bob Moss, whose private-streets
initiative mandates future roads in
Palo Alto be wide enough, to Yoriko
Kishimoto, whose Peninsula Cities
Coalition helped give local communities a voice on high-speed rail.
Many other citizens, businesses
and organizations generated news
of various kinds and made significant contributions to the community, region or nation in the past
year. People are welcome to make
their own nominations on the Town
Square forum linked to this newsmakers’ article.
Here, then, are the Weekly’s nominations for the 13 Newsmakers of
the Year.

Gunn High School student Mark Monroe, right, helps sell T-shirts with the slogan “Talk to me” in October, in response to a spate of recent suicides.
of a top-ranked high school while
making allowances for the deep personal grief felt by large numbers of
students and staff members.
Following the first suicide May 5,
a stunned and distraught community sought expert help on how to
respond, offering students and staff
an array of counseling and mental
health resources.
Each subsequent Caltrain death
(June 2, Aug. 21, Oct. 19) brought
renewed grief, as well as mounting
concerns about the documented phenomenon of “suicide contagion.”
Parents, school leaders, medical
experts, religious leaders and concerned citizens mobilized to offer
what help they could.
A loosely organized “community
task force” representing up to 20
groups began meeting over the summer to develop an action plan. Their
work is described on the City of Palo
Alto’s website under “Project Safety
Net” (www.cityofpaloalto.org/depts/
csd/community_and_family_resources/safetynet/default.asp).
Members of Project Safety Net are
looking at various methods for student mental health screening, organizing free assistance for those unable

to pay and educating media outlets on
how to handle suicide coverage.
“We do have a list of students
that we’re watching and trying to
support,” Carol Zepecki, district
student-services director, said of the
varied responses.
Numerous panel discussions on
adolescent mental health and depression were held by PTAs, counseling
services, religious organizations as
people struggled to understand the
deaths — until the time to talk became a time to act.
“We might have had enough community panels,” Zepecki said.
A subgroup of Project Safety Net
is considering the pros and cons of
performing “psychological autopsies,” which Zepecki described as
“reviewing the student deaths to try
to find factors that suggest a pattern
or inform in any way something the
community might do differently.”
Families of two of the students
indicated they may be interested in
pursuing this, she said.
When short-term police monitoring of the Meadow Drive Caltrain
crossing failed to prevent subsequent
suicides, parents and neighbors took
matters into their own hands.

Following the fourth death, parents and neighbors initiated “Palo
Alto Track Watch,” which organizes
volunteers to maintain a physical
presence at the tracks during hours
trains are running.
Security guards were hired in late
November by the Palo Alto Police
Department to bolster the citizen
patrols, possibly through the end of
the school year.
Police have supplied reflective
vests and training to the volunteers.
The volunteers have expanded the
track-monitoring to other Caltrain
crossings.
In early December, Caltrain approved new lighting to illuminate
the Meadow Drive crossing in an effort to dissuade potential suicides.
Gunn students themselves have
initiated some of the most touching responses to the deaths, trying
to foster more open communication
among their peers.
Seniors Miles Mathews and Sam
Zeif seized on their T-shirt-making
hobby to create artful shirts featuring colorful human profiles with the
words: “Talk to me.”
“Sometimes we just need someone
to talk to, so lend your ears and open

up,” the students said. “Be the change
you wish to see at Gunn.” At $5 each,
the shirts sold out immediately.
Other students organized to become “The ROCK,” staffing a
“ROCK” table in the library during
their free periods for any student
wishing to stop and talk about anything. ROCK stands for “reach out,
care and know.”
In late October senior Joyce Liu
created the website “Henry M. Gunn
Gives Me Hope,” modeled after a
website called “Gives Me Hope.” It
invites people to post stories about
the good things, large and small,
that transpire daily at the school.
Last week a student posted the
following:
“A few weeks ago I finally told
my friends that last year I battled
depression and thoughts of suicide.
I was halfway through thanking
them for befriending me when they
all tackled me at the same time.
They all refused to stop hugging me
for the next ten minutes. Henry M.
Gunn Gives Me Hope.”
The student signed off with the
screen name, “Happy.” N
— Chris Kenrick
(continued on page 5)

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Emotional jurors say they deliberated hard before reaching
unanimous verdict to do â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the right thingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;
by Sue Dremann
lberto Alvarez should receive
the death penalty for killing
East Palo Alto Police Officer
Richard May, jurors decided late
Tuesday.
The six-man, six-woman jury returned with the unanimous verdict at
5 p.m., before a packed San Mateo
County courtroom in Redwood City.
Several jurors wept as the verdict
was read. Alvarez family members
sat stunned and weeping, while
Mayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family members cried and
rejoiced.
Alvarez showed no emotion as the
verdict was read, or when he was
later led in chains from the courtroom, not looking back.
If Superior Court Judge Craig Parsons agrees, Alvarez will be sent to
San Quentin Prison, where he will
await execution on Death Row during what could be a multi-year appeals process. Alvarez, who had
admitted killing May but claimed it
was in self-defense, was convicted
of first-degree murder on Nov. 25.
The second trial was to determine
his sentence: death or life in prison.
Jurors described to the Weekly
the often emotional give-and-take
of the deliberations as individual jurors evolved in their opinions, finally
reaching unanimity. Jurors said Alvarezâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; criminal history and apparent lack
of remorse weighed heavily on their
decision, along with his firing two final shots at May after the officer was
wounded or near-death on the ground
in the Jan. 7, 2006, shoot-out.
After the verdict, Senior Deputy
District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe
hugged Mayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wife, Diana, and other family members.
In an adjacent courtroom, jurors
met the May family and hugged
Diana.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;We feel like weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re family,â&#x20AC;? the
jury forewoman said. Jurors asked
not to be quoted by name.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;You can tell from the tears during the roll call it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t an easy
thing. We spent many days coming
to this decision,â&#x20AC;? a male juror said.
The multi-racial jury did not take
an immediate vote in early delibera-

A

tions and at first not everyone agreed
on the death penalty, the forewoman
said. At one point, the vote was 11 to
1 in favor of death.
At different times, some jurors favored a life sentence, she added.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;It changed hour by hour, day by
day,â&#x20AC;? she said. Ultimately, jurors
said they felt they came to the only
logical conclusion.
Jurors took just six hours on Nov.
25 to find Alvarez guilty of firstdegree murder with special circumstance, killing an officer.
Jurors each had different reasons for
voting for the death penalty, she said.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;The strongest aggravating factor
was his convicted-criminal history.
First-degree murder was a matter of
time,â&#x20AC;? she said of his lifelong trajectory of violence.
One juror, a 49-year East Palo
Alto resident, said she was not
swayed by defense claims that community resources were not available
to Alvarez or that he was exposed
to trauma because of street violence
when growing up in East Palo Alto.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Being a resident of East Palo
Alto you know whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s available to
people. ... (And) Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never seen a
dead body on the street,â&#x20AC;? she said.
She said at first she was sympathetic to Alvarez.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s caged in and starts firing,â&#x20AC;?
she said. But â&#x20AC;&#x153;it really bothered me
that I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see any emotion on his
face. ... The last two shots he fired,
it really takes a cold-blooded person to do that.â&#x20AC;?
â&#x20AC;&#x153;We did the best thing â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the right
thing,â&#x20AC;? she said.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;There was a lot of frustration, a lot
of tears. There were moments at the
beginning when I thought we werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t
going to get there,â&#x20AC;? another female
juror said. As jurors worked through
the process, there was really only one
verdict to come to, she said.
Alvarez â&#x20AC;&#x153;didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t show any remorse.
Every day we were there, he was expressionless,â&#x20AC;? she said.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;When he was on the witness
stand he had the chance to say two
words: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sorry,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; and we didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t
hear him say that.â&#x20AC;? N

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Stabilizer of the year
Police Chief Dennis Burns
focuses on restoring
community relations

I

Shawn Fender

tâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been a long, hectic year for
the Palo Alto Police Department. When Police Chief Lynne
Johnson resigned in December
2008 under a storm of racial-profiling allegations, the job of repairing
community relations fell to Assistant Chief Dennis Burns, a 27-year
veteran of the Police Department.
Burns, a college track star who
made headlines in 2007 when he
chased down a purse-snatcher in
downtown Palo Alto, hit the ground
running by holding workshops on racially impartial policing. As â&#x20AC;&#x153;interim
chief,â&#x20AC;? he sought advice from racialprofiling expert Lorie Fridell, held
monthly â&#x20AC;&#x153;Meet the Chiefâ&#x20AC;? meetings
with the community and set up a
citizen advisory board to advise the
department on public outreach.
Burns also had to deal with the
equally daunting task of steering the
170-member department through a
period of budget cuts and service
reductions.
In July, City Manager James
Keene gave Burns his vote of confidence and named him the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
ninth police chief, following a nationwide search that attracted more
than 40 candidates.
At his swearing-in ceremony in
November, Burns pledged to provide the community with the highest level of service and to give his
officers all the tools they need to do
their jobs effectively.
Now, Burns is looking ahead to
another challenging year. The department has a leaner staff and a
smaller budget. Community Outreach Coordinator Susie Ord retired
at the end of the year and Burns said
she may not be replaced. Popular
programs such as Citizenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Academy may also be cut.
With more cuts on the way, Burns
said the department would have to
look for creative ways to maintain
its scope of services.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Going forward, we will have to
look at ourselves, be introspective
and find ways to operate in an efficient manner,â&#x20AC;? Burns said. N
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Gennady Sheyner

Dennis Burns shakes hands with former Secretary of State George
Schultz, after being sworn in as Palo Altoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new Police Chief.
woman Yoriko Kishimoto brought
some level-headedness to the debate
by reaching out to the rail authority
and by forming a coalition with four
other Peninsula cities. In her final
year on the
council, the
political veteran founded
and served
as chair of
the Peninsula Cities
Consortium
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a group
that includes
Palo Alto,
Menlo Park, Yoriko Kishimoto
Atherton,
Belmont and
Burlingame. Kishimoto soaked up
information, made connections with
rail officials, organized community
meetings on the project and used the
combined political weight of the five
member cities to wring concessions
from the rail authority.
Kishimoto was also a leading
proponent of applying the inclusive,
collaborative â&#x20AC;&#x153;context-sensitive solutionsâ&#x20AC;? approach to rail design. After extensive lobbying by the coalition, the rail authority agreed to the
context-sensitive approach on the
San Francisco-to-San Jose segment
and mentioned the design approach
in its newly released business plan.
At a study session on high-speed
rail Nov. 16, Kishimoto referred to
the project as â&#x20AC;&#x153;transformativeâ&#x20AC;? and
said the goal of the Peninsula coalition is make sure the project transforms the region in a positive way.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;We always say, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;We hang togeth-

er or we hang separately,â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? Kishimoto said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m glad at least enough of
our Peninsula cities came together
to share information and so that we
have greater political leverage.â&#x20AC;?
In 2010, Kishimoto may find herself better positioned to influence
the state project, now estimated at
$42.6 billion. After concluding her
eighth year on the Palo Alto council, Kishimoto is now eyeing a new
elective office â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Ira Ruskinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s seat
in the 21st Assembly District when
he is termed out of office in January 2010. N
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Gennady Sheyner

Neighborhood activist
of the year

P

alo Alto officials scrambled
throughout 2009 to keep up
with the Californiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s controversial high-speed rail project.
By the time the City Council became fully engaged in the project
the California High-Speed Rail
Authority had already decided that
the rail line would stretch through
the middle of the city, with elevated
tracks listed as one possibility. Rumors circulated about a 20-foot-high
wall dividing the city. Residents
along the Caltrain tracks were unnerved to learn that the rail authority wields eminent-domain powers.
With tempers flaring, Council-

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JJ&F Market

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Fred Balin wins on trees,
loses on College Terrace
Centre (JJ&F)

C

ollege Terrace resident Fred
Balin took on two battles this
year, one successfully, the
other not.
Balin mounted unsuccessful opposition to
the College
Terrace Centre development, a cont roversia l
office-andretail project,
more widely
known as
the JJ&F development.
Fred Balin
The
plan

Coalition builder
of the year
Yoriko Kishimoto unites
cities on high-speed rail

Tall
Tree
Award

(continued on page 6)

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will build nearly 40,000 square feet
of office space, 5,580 square feet of
additional retail and eight units of
affordable housing in exchange for
keeping the beloved JJ&F market by
way of a rent subsidy.
Balin opposed the zoning change
from neighborhood commercial to
planned community, which allows
for denser development.
But he and wife Ann led a successful citizen response to the California
Avenue trees fiasco, when the city
prematurely ordered 63 holly oaks
cut down. The citizen response resulted in a more varied tree-planting
plan and greater citizen involvement
in future tree-replacement projects.
The city had the trees cut down to
make way for a more uniform look
to California Avenue, as part of a
“streetscape improvement” plan.
Residents and some business owners were outraged, while citizens
and arborists were concerned about
planting only red maples.
Balin organized two public meetings on California Avenue, including one with tree expert Barrie
Coate, to come up with alternatives
to the monochromatic tree-replacement plan favored by the California
Avenue Area Development Association.
The city took the citizens/arborists suggestions to heart, calling
a meeting for community input. The
City Council unanimously approved
a proposal Nov. 16 to plant all the
new trees before the end of February.
In both cases, city departments
and the council failed to lay out elements of each project “in relation to
rules we have,” Balin said.
That failure results in citizen action through “the blunt and imperfect instruments” available, such as
lawsuits, referendums, initiatives
— and elections — to express dissatisfaction, he said.
“How many people voted against
the business license tax because
they just didn’t trust the city with
any more money?” he asked.
The response becomes, “You
know, let’s starve the beast,” he
said. N
— Sue Dremann

School newsmaker
of the year
Paly Principal McEvoy,
parents, students declare
war over ‘egg wars’

T

he consequences of an Oct.
27 egg fight among Palo Alto
High School students continue
to ripple through the community
more than two months later.
The “egg wars” between members
of Paly’s junior and senior classes,
an unauthorized tradition of the
school’s annual Spirit Week, occurred this year on the Gunn High
School campus rather than at its
usual location in a Stanford eucalyptus grove.
When Paly Principal Jacquie
McEvoy learned of the gooey
damage thousands of broken eggs
wreaked on Gunn sports facilities,
she began issuing five-day sus-

Page 6ÊUÊ
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City, California Avenue
businesses misstep on
clearcutting trees

O

Weekly file photo

"#
Member of Build It Green and Northern CA Green Builders

Underestimators
of the year

Newsmakers ’09

Jacquie McEvoy
pensions and threatened to cancel
the remainder of Spirit Week activities.
McEvoy quickly reduced the suspensions to one day and reinstated
Spirit Week after she said she
learned the egg fight had been less
serious than she originally thought
— but not before triggering a revolt
by some Paly parents.
Frustrated by what they saw as
McEvoy’s hair-trigger discipline in
the egg wars and an overall “punitive” style, some parents called for
a probe of the school’s investigative
procedures in the egg-wars incident.
The investigation amounted to
“nothing short of a terror campaign
against the students to seek out and
punish” those involved, parent and
lawyer Megan Carroll said.
McEvoy said she was drafting an
explanation of her philosophy concerning student discipline.
Meanwhile, she agreed to drop
the suspensions from students’ permanent records if they stay on good
behavior for the rest of the year.
Overall, anywhere from 50 to
150 students participated in the egg
fight. Twelve students received suspensions and community-service
assignments, and another six got
just community service, the school
said.
Gunn Principal Noreen Likins
said the school was grateful that Paly
students had accompanied McEvoy
on an apology mission to Gunn,
where they told Gunn students their
prank had in no way been aimed at
Gunn but occurred there after Stanford police shooed them away from
the eucalyptus grove.
Likins called in professional help
to clean the eggs from Gunn’s new
track, scoreboards and pool deck at
a cost of $3,200, to be covered by
Paly.
“Eggs are a substance that really
damage a lot of surfaces,” she said,
explaining why she preferred professional cleaners to student volunteers.
In the end, everyone seemed to
agree that they wished they could
turn back the clock to the day before
the scheduled egg wars and try a rerun, a kind of mutual-regret truce —
sort of like the proverbial walking
on egg shells. N
— Chris Kenrick

ne day in mid-September, 63
mature holly oaks along California Avenue mysteriously
disappeared. Mysteriously because,
as it turned out, no one except for
a small group of business leaders from California Avenue Area
Development Association got the
memo that the city’s most dramatic
clearcutting operation of the year
would be taking place in the threeblock-long business district.
Then the city announced that
Public Works staff violated city
policy by clearcutting the trees
without going through a mandated
waiting period. After a massive
community protest, the city halted
the streetscape project, hired new
landscape consultants, held a series
of community meetings, talked to
a panel of arborists and offered a
series of apologies for the “tree debacle.”
Now, city officials say they are
determined to right the wrongs of
2009 by adopting a more transparent process for replacing the felled
trees and making other streetscape
improvements on California Avenue. Replanting is scheduled to
begin the end of January and stretch
through February.
“It’s new trees for a new year,”
said Mike Sartor, assistant director
of the Public Works Department.
New process, as well. Streetscape
improvements will now be thoroughly reviewed by city commissions
and publicized beyond the immediate neighborhood. September’s mistakes notwithstanding, Sartor said
the department is pleased with the
way the community came together
for the tree-replacement plan.
“The good news that came out of
this was the process conducted to
select the replanting,” Sartor said.
“The planning commission and the
public came up with a collaborative
effort to select the new trees.” N
— Gennady Sheyner

Naysayers of the year
Palo Alto’s small-business
community relieved over
business-tax failure

I

n January, Councilman John
Barton predicted that Palo Alto
voters would see the city’s proposed business-license tax as a
“slam dunk” and pass it with ease,
thereby generating about $3 million
in badly needed revenue for the city
budget.
Ten months later, city officials
learned that it’s been a dismal decade for the term “slam dunk.”
Small businesses rose up against
the tax, voters rejected Measure A,
and city officials found themselves
staring at a swelling budget deficit
with no end in sight.
For small-business owners, the
defeat of Measure A was a speck
of good news in a bleak year. With
downtown vacancies spiking and
sales revenues plummeting, many
business owners said a new business
tax is the last thing the city needs.

Upfront

Activist of the year
Bob Moss fights
City Hall — and wins

B

arron Park resident Bob Moss
couldn’t believe his ears: two
more years before the City of
Palo Alto could address a privatestreets ordinance.
Meanwhile, higher and denser
building developments with toonarrow streets were being approved
that would impact the city’s neighborhoods, existing and new.
Many residents of new developments and their neighbors had
complained that the narrow streets
posed hazards. Inadequate parking forced residents and visitors
to spill into other neighborhoods,
they said.
Moss became concerned in February when he learned that private
streets were being counted a part
of an overall size of the property
— which meant the buildings
could be larger than if the streets
were dedicated public streets. This
constitutes a boon to developers at
the expense of residents and the
community, he said.
Planning Director Curtis Williams told Moss that the city planning staff “can’t do anything about
it for a couple of years,” Moss recalled.
“I said, ‘This is ridiculous. We
don’t have time to do it? I’ll do it.’”
Moss formed a citizen’s group
with a website for a name, “2narrow4safety.org,” and developed the
Private Streets Initiative, which
specifies that private streets should
have uniform widths — 32 feet, with
some exceptions.
More than 2,303 Palo Alto voters
signed the petition, which was filed
July 13. The City Council adopted
the ordinance Sept. 21. The ordinance will take effect after the city
approves a technical definition of
private streets.
Moss’s approach sounds simple.
“You understand the problem, you
look for real solutions and you work
on them.
“If you are doing the job right, you
listen to other people. You pick their
brains and you come up with a project better than you started with in the

Weekly file photo

Harold “Skip” Justman, an attorney who led the campaign against
Measure A, argued in the months before the November election that the
measure was too vague, too intrusive
and too onerous to win compliance
from small businesseses. The voters,
he said, recognized the burden Measure A would place on businesses
and rejected the measure.
Paula Sandas, chief executive officer of the Palo Alto Chamber of
Commerce, said the vote proved
that residents are committed to protecting and supporting Palo Alto’s
small-business community.
Sandas said the organization is
open-minded about the city’s next
business-tax proposal. The Chamber plans to work with the city and
hopes to have a hand in shaping
whatever tax proposal emerges from
the next City Council.
“We are trying to be proactive
and looking for ways to be part of
the process,” Sandas said. N
— Gennady Sheyner

TJ GLIDDEN

Bob Moss
first place,” he said, citing his work
with city officials and citizens. N
— Sue Dremann

Developers of the year
Ellis Partners brings Town
& Country Village back to life

W

hen the family-run Ellis
Partners of San Francisco
bought the ailing Town &
Country Village five years ago, all
options — including scraping the
55-year-old community icon —
were on the table.
“We took a very broad look at its
potential future use,” Ellis Partners
founder and Managing Principal
Jim Ellis said.
“We started a dialogue with the
community and the City of Palo
Alto. We realized this was a valuable kind of community gem, if
you will, and we’re not interested
in building projects that don’t have
community and city support.”
In the end it cost his firm more to
revive Town & Country as a “community gathering spot” than to
demolish and rebuild it as a retailresidential project, Ellis said.
Ellis dispatched clipboard-clutching interviewers to the site, asking
shoppers what they’d like to see
happen at Town & Country.
“We knew we needed to do some
high-quality restaurants that were
unique to Palo Alto — no chain restaurants, nothing like that,” Ellis said.
Ellis Partners’ other projects include

redeveloping Oakland’s Jack London
Square, office-retail buildings at 114
Sansome and 111 Sutter streets in San
Francisco and EmeryTech, an office
project in Emeryville.
“We also knew we needed specialty retail and everyday service
retail — dry cleaners and cobblers.
And we did not want to see certain
institutions, like the Village Cheese
House, leave,” he said.
Surveyors found that the mostrequested tenant was Trader Joe’s,
“which in part was why we decided
to chase them down and get them
into the center,” Ellis said.
“We took great pains to make that
building look like the other ones.
It was not an easy task. I hope it
blends in well.”
Ultimately the developer spent
$30 million — triple the initial budget — for roofing, seismic and electrical retrofits and rebuilding the
common areas and parking lots.
Ellis admitted the renovations,
temporary scarcity of parking —
and unpopular decisions such as terminating the Cookbook restaurant
— have “tried people’s nerves.”
But the end result, culminating
with the Dec. 4 opening of Trader
Joe’s, is the community gathering
spot he envisioned, he said. N
— Chris Kenrick

he war between Page Mill
Properties and its tenants in
East Palo Alto hit two key
turning points in September. First,

Numbers say it all for
Palo Alto-based Facebook

P

Martin Yonke, left, Diane Sekimura, Kim Fletcher and Brandon Baum,
who won a compromise to preserve Edgewood Plazaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Eichler architecture, stand in front of the former Papasitos Restaurant.
a San Mateo County judge barred
the Palo Alto-based property management firm from raising rents at
its apartment complexes in East
Palo Alto. Then, a week later, the
company briefly abandoned the
East Palo Alto apartments, leaving
trash cans overflowing, fire alarms
malfunctioning and residents wondering what to do with their rent
checks.
When the dust settled, the situation looked bleak for the largest
landlord in East Palo Alto. After
months of raising rents (in some
cases by more than 50 percent), suing East Palo Alto and lobbying San
Mateo County officials to break off
the Woodland Park neighborhood
from the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sphere of influence,
the company found itself on the
defensive and struggling to pay its
bills.
By the second half of the year,
the company that East Palo Alto officials had long accused of â&#x20AC;&#x153;predatoryâ&#x20AC;? tactics now found itself prey

International School of the Peninsula

to the Great Recession. In August,
Page Mill missed a $50 million
payment to Wells Fargo Bank. A
judge then upheld an injunction by
tenants against Page Mill, barring
the company from â&#x20AC;&#x153;collecting or
enforcing any rent increasesâ&#x20AC;? at its
properties.
The Palo Alto Police Department
even got involved: It hired a private
investigator to look into Page Millâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
hiring of a Palo Alto officer to
moonlight as its security consultant.
That investigation is ongoing.
Page Millâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s financial woes hit
their climax in September, when
the company was forced to cede
control of its 1,700-plus units to a
court-appointed receiver, Wald Realty Advisors.
Now, as the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s apartments slog toward foreclosure, tenants are anxiously waiting to see
what will happen to the properties.
Meanwhile, East Palo Alto officials
and Wald Realty are contemplating
a deal that would settle the ongoing

alo Alto social networking
giant Facebookâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leadership
in 2009 perhaps can be best
quantified in lay terms by its move
to Stanford Research Park from its
10 downtown Palo Alto offices.
The exponentially growing company moved most of its then-800
employees to the research park in
May. The company moved into the
former 132,780-square-foot Agilent
facility at 1601 S. California Ave.,
which can hold a maximum 1,446
employees.
Facebook says it now has about
1,000 employees.
The companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s phenomenal
growth led it to rent an additional
265,000 square feet in December

(continued on page 11)

Veronica weber

Fiscal crisis of the year

Company of the year

Veronica weber

ties) and 86 homes in Tract 1641 in
1956. They are bound by a â&#x20AC;&#x153;Declaration of Restrictions, Conditions,
Covenants, Changes and Agreementsâ&#x20AC;? (CC&Rs).
Such declarations can restrict
changes or uses of properties. The
CC&Rs limit residences to onestory detached homes and restrict
two Edgewood Plaza lots for retail, restaurant, office and similar
commercial uses. The declaration
requires that construction plans
must be approved by a three-person
Architectural Control Committee,
plaintiffs said.
Committee members and Sand
Hill reached a settlement Oct. 29.
The settlement could clear the way
for redevelopment of the dilapidated, 53-year-old shopping plaza,
whose future has long been under
contention.
The agreement includes reducing the number of new homes to 10,
adding a 10,400-square-foot (0.25
acre) public space and preservation
of two original Eichler retail buildings and a grocery-store building.
Neighborhood leaders and most
residents have expressed satisfaction
with the outcome at public meetings.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;We were really fortunate to have
the legal backup of the CC&Rs to
help level the playing field. In negotiations with a powerful developer, you have to have some place
to stand,â&#x20AC;? Sekimura said. N
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Sue Dremann

in the research park, at 1050 Page
Mill Road.
Spokesman Larry Yu said Facebook went from 150 million users
in January to 350 million by early
December. And officials expect
even more explosive growth in the
near future.
The company implemented Facebook Connect in December 2008,
a viral sharing loop that allows 60
million users every month to visit,
comment, rate and share websites
with others. So far about 80,000
websites have used the tool, including many businesses, he said.
Facebook scored $200 million in
investment funds in May from Digital Sky Technologies, its first big financial injection since 2007.
In October, Facebook was awarded a $711 million judgment against
a prolific spammer, a coup that
would keep others from abusing the
site, Yu said.
The company â&#x20AC;&#x153;didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t expect the
level of consternationâ&#x20AC;? to changes

Ashoke Chakrabarti, left, and fellow members of the User Operations
team at Facebook work at their new office on South California Avenue
in December.

ach year the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund raises money to support
Give to the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund and
programs ser ving families and children in the Palo Alto area. Since
your donation is doubled. You give to non-profit
the Weekly and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation cover all the
groups that work right here in our community. administrative costs, every dollar raised goes directly to support community
It’s a great way to ensure that your charitable programs through grants to non-profit organizations ranging from $1,000 to
donations are working at home. $25,000.

And with the generous support of matching grants from local foundations,
including the Packard and Hewlett foundations and the Peery & Arrillaga family
foundations, your tax-deductible gift will be doubled in size. A donation of $100
turns into $200 with the foundation matching gifts.
Whether as an individual, a business or in honor of someone else, help us
beat last year's total of $260,000 by making a generous contribution to the
Holiday Fund.
With your generosity, we can give a major boost to the programs in our
community helping kids and families.

NOTICE OF A PUBLIC MEETING
of the City of Palo Alto
Architectural Review Board (ARB)

in its terms-of-service agreement
in February, which granted Facebook irrevocable and perpetual license on any and all content, even
after a user quits the site.
Facebook backtracked days later
after a storm of protest, instituting
a Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, to give users input in
how terms are changed.
The company announced positive
cash flow for the first time in September, ahead of 2010 projections,
he said. N
— Sue Dremann

Please be advised that Thursday, January 7, 2010, the ARB shall
conduct a public hearing at 8:30 AM in the Council Chambers,
1st Floor, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California. Any
interested persons may appear and be heard.

Nonprofit of the year

340 University Avenue [09PLN-00262]: Request by
Bohlin Cywinski Jackson on behalf of Elizabeth Wong for Minor
Architectural Review of exterior building improvements including
a new front facade, roof, and minor changes to the rear facade
of an existing retail building. No new ﬂoor area will be added
to the building. Environmental Assessment: Exempt from the
provisions of CEQA, 15301 (Existing Facilities

New Jewish community center
embraces whole community
t was almost beyond my
wildest dreams,” Carol
Saal said about the grand
opening of the Oshman Family
Jewish Community Center on the
Taube Koret Campus for Jewish
Life in south Palo Alto in October.
“That’s the point of the campus,
bringing people into Jewish life,
who have no other connections, but
feel they need to be part of something in the Jewish community.
“It was much bigger than I ever
imagined,” said Saal, as she spotted both familiar and unrecognized
faces in the crowd that day.
Saal was instrumental in raising
more than $140 million over eight
years for the center, which is open to
the whole community. About half of
the fitness club membership is estimated to be not Jewish, according to
Alan Sataloff, chief executive officer.
The center, which replaced Sun
Microsystems at the corner of
Charleston and San Antonio roads,
promises to transform life in that
section of the city.
It includes a state-of-the-art fitness center with indoor and outdoor
pools, a preschool, classrooms and
lounges, rooms for nonprofit group
meetings, a 350-seat theater, a cafe
and a gift shop.
The center replaces the old Albert
L. Schultz Jewish Community Center,
which was located at the then-closed
Terman Middle School and later
temporarily moved to the Cubberley
Community Center. In addition, the
larger campus includes the Moldaw
Family Residences and a branch of
the Stanford Health Library.
With a goal of attracting 12,000
annual members, the center is designed as an urban village, where
one can drop kids off at preschool,
work out, visit grandparents, have
a cup of coffee, go to a meeting —
all without moving the car.
Built out to the edges of the 8.5acre property, outdoor spaces are
visible — and usable — from inside the complex, rather than from
the street. Buildings form the backdrop for “outdoor rooms,” including
a town square that can be used for
big events, such as concerts. N
— Carol Blitzer

“I

Public Agenda
CITY OF PALO ALTO …
The city has no meetings
scheduled for this week.

El Camino Real and Stanford Avenue Intersection
Improvements [09PLN-00305]:
Request by the
Transportation Division, on behalf of the City of Palo Alto, for
Architectural Review for streetscape improvements for the El
Camino Real and Stanford Avenue intersection. Project includes
bulbouts, enhanced pedestrian crosswalks, enlarged landscape
median, street furniture and other improvements.

The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals
with disabilities. To request accommodations to access City
facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings,
or to learn more about the City’s compliance with the Americans
with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), please contact the City’s
ADA Coordinator at 650.329.2550 (voice) or by e-mailing ada@
cityofpaloalto.org.
Amy French
Manager of Current Planning

CITY OF PALO ALTO
NOTICE TO DESTROY WEEDS
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that on December 14, 2009,
pursuant to the provisions of Section 8.08.020 of the Palo
Alto Municipal Code, the City Council passed a resolution declaring that all weeds growing upon any private
property or in any public street or alley, as deﬁned in Section 8.08.010 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code, constitute
a public nuisance, which nuisance must be abated by the
destruction or removal thereof.
NOTICE IS FURTHER GIVEN that property owners shall
without delay remove all such weeds from their property,
and the abutting half of the street in front and alleys, if any,
behind such property, and between the lot lines thereof
as extended, or such weeds will be destroyed or removed and such nuisance abated by the city authorities,
in which case the cost of such destruction or removal will
be assessed upon the lots and lands from which, or from
the front or rear of which, such weeds shall have been
destroyed or removed; and such cost will constitute a lien
upon such lots or lands until paid, and will be collected
upon the next tax roll upon which general municipal taxes
are collected. All property owners having any objections
to the proposed destruction or removal of such weeds
are hereby notiﬁed to attend a meeting of the Council of
said city, to be held in the City Chamber of the City Hall
in said city on January 11, 2010, at seven o’clock pm.,
when and where their objections will be heard and given
due consideration.
FIRE CHIEF
CITY OF PALO ALTO

on, Grant Cuesta Sub-Acute
Los Altos Sub-Acute & Rehabilitati
-Acute & Rehabilitation has
& Rehabilitation and Palo Alto Sub
sicians and has made
joined with the above attending phy
es to the following charities:
charitable contributions in their nam

During this holiday season we want to take the
opportunity to celebrate those that allow us to
be the leaders in helping others. In the spirit of giving
we want to continue to help others and unite in the
efforts to make a difference.
W
We are proud to be serving our communities
aand those that live in them for over 35 years.
Best wishes and a healthy and prosperous
new year to you and your families.

www.covenantcare.com

Answers to this weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s puzzles, which can be found on page 24

6
7
1
3
2
9
8
4
5

A Mandarin Immersion
Preschool bringing a world
of opportunities to your child.
Come see our
12,000sf First
Class Brand
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Looking for Preschool Teacher who speaks native English and ability to teach Phonics

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OF

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Not valid on XOOTR Scooters or Radio Flyer Wagons

009 was a year of extreme emotions — from celebrating the first African-American president’s inauguration to mourning the deaths of teenagers. A year of
economic belt-tightening brought heightened consciousness
of how close to the margin so many in our community are
living.

But there was joy as well as sorrow, volunteering or competing in the Senior Games at Stanford University and beyond, or simply enjoying a stroll in the much-needed rain.
Here are a few of the images that reflect the roller-coaster
ride of 2009.
— Carol Blitzer

Dana Ullman

Page 14ÊUÊ
iViLiÀÊÓx]ÊÓääÊUÊ*>ÊÌÊ7iiÞ

Shawn Fender

Veronica Weber

Top, on a chilly day in January, visitors to Washington prepare to witness President Barack Obama’s Inauguration. Above left, Margaret
Allen examines Richard Nicholson at Ravenswood Family Health Clinic’s mobile unit in June. Above right, local residents wait to hear
Congresswoman Anna Eshoo speak on the status of national health reform at Spangenberg Theatre at Gunn High School in September.

Learn the Guitar this Winter
Carol McComb's "Starting to Play" workshop includes
the FREE use of a Loaner Guitar for the duration
of the classes.* Regular cost is just $160 for nine
weeks of group lessons, and all music is included.
*"Starting to Play" meets for one hour each Monday night for nine weeks
beginning January 4th. Students are encouraged to bring their own guitar,
but both nylon-string and steel-string loaner guitars are available.
Other classes at more advanced levels are also offered. A full
brochure is available at Gryphon.

Stringed Instruments
Since 1969

650 U493 U2131
,AMBERT !VE s 0ALO !LTO
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A Guide to
the Spiritual Community
Veronica Weber

Veronica Weber

First United Methodist Church of Palo Alto

Dana Ullman

Veronica Weber

Above, Lt. Don Morrissey
of the Santa Clara County Sheriffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office holds
up a seized marijuana
plant found growing in
the foothills south of Palo
Alto. Left, Krishna Kopell
finishes up an oil painting of the Palo Alto baylands in February, under
overcast skies. Right,
Rafael, who sends money
home to his family in
Mexico, lives in a shanty,
with room for just a bed
and bookshelves, in East
Palo Altoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s baylands.

This Sunday: Raising a Gifted Child
David Howell preaching
An Open and Affirming Congregation of the United Church of Christ

Stanford Memorial Church
University Public Worship
Stanford Memorial Church
Sundays, 10:00 am
There will be no 10:00 am UPW services on
December 20th, December 27th and January 3rd
UPW will resume Sunday, January 10th
Happy Holidays from Stanford Office for Religious Life
http://religiouslife.stanford.edu

Veronica Weber

"$%#

'&"!
'$%$*$$"(
#"'$%%

INSPIRATIONS

A resource for special events
and ongoing religious
services. To inquire about or
make space reservations for
Inspirations, please contact
Blanca Yoc at 326-8210
x6596 or email
byoc@paweekly.com

"!&("%&"%

)))"%&"%'&$!"$

We Invite You to Learn and Worship with Us.

Veronica Weber

Veronica Weber

Far left, Darrell McNenny sprints across
the finish line during the Senior Games
in August. Top left, Bakari Holmes, a
Gunn High School physics teacher, sings
during the celebration of Jean-Paul
Blanchardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life in May. Bottom left,
Audrey Blabon contemplates losing her
home at Casa Olga, an intermediatecare facility in Palo Alto that closed in
September.

SPORTS ONLINE
For expanded daily coverage of college
and prep sports, please see our new site
at www.PASportsOnline.com

Stanford senior quarterback Tavita Pritchard (14) had the attention of head coach Jim Harbaugh (right) as Pritchard worked out this week with his teammates at Palo Alto High while preparing for next Thursday’s Brut Sun Bowl game in El Paso, Texas. Pritchard has taken over for the injured Andrew Luck.

STANFORD FOOTBALL

It’ll be a uniform
effort at Sun Bowl

Gerhart and offensive line have one more
job ahead of them as Cardinal takes on Sooners
by Rick Eymer
hris Marinelli and the rest of
the Tunnel Workers Union
have their work cut out for
them one more time. Toby Gerhart
made sure to add to their wardrobe
for the occasion.
Stanford’s offensive line have
symbolically worn their hard hats
all year in clearing the way for the
Gerhart Express. There’s one more
wall to punch through in the form of
Oklahoma’s defensive front and now
they can wear T-shirts given them
by the nation’s rushing yardage and
scoring leader.
“They have a cool logo on them,”
Marinelli said of the shirts that feature a face mask, a hard hat and a
pick with the words “Tunnel Workers Union, Stanford offensive line
2009” emblazoned on the front.
No. 19 Stanford (8-4) and Okla-

C

homa (7-5) meet on the final day of
the year at the Brut Sun Bowl in El
Paso at 11 a.m. (PT) on CBS, and
the Cardinal wants to finish this improbable season on a good note.
“It’s a great football venue against
a great team,” Marinelli said. “This
is something we have battled for
as a team. There’s a great group of
senior leaders who expects nothing
but greatness.”
Gerhart may have been on his
own in New York during the Heisman Trophy activities, but he carried his ‘union’ buddies around with
him in some form.
“We were living it with him,”
Marinelli said. “Of course we feel
there’s no better person deserving
of the award than him. He’s an allaround good guy. He takes home ev(continued on page 18)

Keith Peters

RECORD SWIMS . . . It has been
a remarkable year already for
Stanford senior Julia Smit and
we haven’t even got into the heart
of the spring swim season yet.
Smit put the finishing touches on
2009 with two world records during the Duel in the Pool in Manchester, England, last weekend.
Swimming short-course meters
in a made-for-TV event, Smit
first broke the world record in
the 400-meter individual medley
with a time of 4:21.04. That broke
Kathryn Meaklim’s previous world
mark of 4:22.88, set in Singapore
earlier this year at the World Cup.
Smit also broke her own U.S. record, previously set in Toronto in
2008, at 4:25.87. Smit came back
on Saturday and broke the 200 IM
world mark, as well. Smitís time
of 2:04.60, broke the nine-day
record of Hungaryís Evelyn Verraszto (2:04.64), set on Dec. 10.

Keith Peters

MAKING WAVES . . . Palo Alto
Stanford Aquatics (PASA) swam
off with another team title at the
California/Nevada Winter Sectional in Southern California this past
weekend at Belmont Plaza Pool in
Long Beach. Palo Alto High sophomore Jasmine Tosky highlighted
PASA’s combined team title by
winning high-point honors in the
women’s meet. Tosky, 15, won
the 400-yard individual medley
in 4:11.47 for her lone individual
victory. She also placed second
in the 200 fly (1:55.63), second in
the 200 IM (2:00.15) and second
in the 100 fly (54.56). Tosky also
swam a leg on the winning 400
free relay team (3:24.25) and led
off the third-place 800 free relay
squad with a fast 1:48.57 200 free
leg. She also finished seventh in
the 200 back (2:01.34) and ninth
in the 100 breast (1:03.62). Teammate Ally Howe was seventh in
the 100 back (56.12) in addition
to swimming on the two relays. In
the men’s meet, PASA’s Tom Kremer from Sacred Heart Prep was
second in the 200 free (1:38.23),
third in the 100 fly (49.83), fourth
in the 1000 free (9:18.94), fourth in
the 100 back (50.51) and 10th in
the 200 back (1:51.50). Teammate
Young Tae Seo was third in the
200 IM (1:51.49), fourth in the 500
free (4:31.78), fourth in the 200
fly (1:48.55) and fourth in the 400
IM (3:54.30). Adam Hinshaw of
PASA was second in the 500 free
(4:30.28) for his best finish.

Heisman Trophy runnerup Toby Gerhart (7) went through his paces on
Tuesday as the Cardinal prepared to face Oklahoma in the Sun Bowl.

Stanford men could be right in middle of Pac-10 hoop race
by Rick Eymer
ust how will the Stanford men’s
basketball team fare in the dyslectic Pac-10 Conference? It’s
open to interpretation.
Washington and Washington State
are looking more like the class of
the conference, but both teams have
struggled at times. In fact, some of
the early results have been mystifying, to say the least, for every team.
Stanford, which dropped a 10087 nonconference decision to host
Texas Tech on Tuesday, has been
one of the prime examples. The

J

Cardinal (5-6) took No. 3 Kentucky
to overtime, played the 23rd-ranked
Red Raiders to a standstill for all but
the final few minutes, beat Virginia,
and had trouble with San Diego.
Stanford has a week off before
returning to the court next Tuesday
with a nonconference home game
against James Madison at 7 p.m.
The Cardinal hopes to end a threegame losing streak before opening
Pac-10 play at California on Jan. 2.
The WCC must be wondering
where the beef is in the Pac-10.
Portland, coached by Menlo School

and Stanford grad Eric Reveno, has
as
good wins over USC and UCLA but
ut
did lose to Washington.
The Red Raiders went 3-0 against
st
the Pac-10 in nonconference, beatting Washington by nine and Oregon State by four. The Beavers
beat Cal State Bakersfield by 35,
but lost at home to Sacramento
State.
The Bruins are in worse shapee
than Stanford these days, having lost
st
to Long Beach State and Cal State
te

For results of
the Stanford-UConn
women’s basketball game
on Wednesday, go to
www.PASportsOnline.com

(continued on page 18)

Palo Alto Weekly • December 25, 2009 • Page 17

Sports

Stanford football
(continued from page 17)

ery award and he’s the most humble
guy on the team.”
Marinelli is the lone senior among
the starters on the offensive line.
He’s joined by junior center Chase
Beeler, junior guard Andrew Phillips and redshirt freshmen Jonathan
Martin and David DeCastro.
“I was uncomfortable with all the
attention,” Gerhart said of his Heisman trip. “Everywhere I went there
were people with cameras, and autograph seekers. When I got back to
campus it was back to work. That’s
where I feel comfortable and where
I want to be.”
The game will feature strength
against strength, with Stanford’s
prolific offense taking on Oklahoma’s stubborn defense.
The Sooners rank eighth in the
nation in rushing defense, allowing
88.58 yards a game. Gerhart averaged 144.7 yards per game on his
own.
Oklahoma ranks seventh in scoring defense, giving up 13.50 points
a game. Stanford averaged 20.24
points in the first half alone.
Stanford’s offensive line not only
produced big gains, but was firmly
entrenched when protecting the
quarterback. The Cardinal allowed
six sacks all season, second in the
nation. The Sooners’ defense got to
the quarterback 37 times, fifth in
the nation.
“A lot of this game will be up
front,” Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh said. “We have to be tougher
and rougher on defense; we have to
hold onto to the ball. Special teams
are going to be an all-out fight. It
will be a clash.”
Chris Owusu was among the national leaders in kickoff returns, averaging 32.5 yards per return. Oklahoma is among the national leaders
in limiting such returns.
“They have a good defense,” Gerhart said. “Gerald McCoy is a beast.
He’s a lot like Bryan Price at UCLA
and demands a lot of attention.”

Men’s basketball
(continued from page 17)

Fullerton in addition to the Pilots.
So far, no one has been exempt
from troubling questions, so perhaps
this is one year where it’s better to
throw the names of the schools in
a hat in order to predict. The media poll predicted California to win
the title, followed by Washington,
UCLA, Arizona, Oregon State,
Oregon, Arizona State, Washington State, USC and Stanford. The
Bears, Huskies and Bruins all received first-place votes.
“It really does not mean anything,” Washington coach Lorenzo
Romar said. “In 2006-07, we had
come off of two consecutive Sweet
16 years and three consecutive
NCAA tournament years. In one of
those years we were a No. 1 seed
in the tournament and we had a really good recruiting class, and were
ranked in the top 10 in the preseason
and we did not make the NCAA
tournament.”
Heading into play Wednesday, the
top five chosen teams have combined for a 28-22 nonconference

Price was the only defensive player to stop Gerhart for a loss with a
solo tackle during the course of the
season.
“He doesn’t come out; he’s relentless on every play and he moves
around,” Gerhart said. “He’ll make
his plays. They have one of the top
defensive lines in the country. Their
linebackers and cornerbacks are fast
and run sideline to sideline well. But
I feel like we’ve faced quite a few
good defenses.”
Marinelli has also been impressed

watching film of the Sooners.
“They have an incredible pass
rush and two lock down corners,”
he said. “If you have two terrific defensive ends, that will win a couple
of extra games for you. Stats aside,
they have great individual players
and there will be one-on-one challenges. We’ve faced good defenses
already and this is another chance
to prove what we can do.”
Marinelli said preparing for a
bowl game seems like “light years”
from his earlier, not-so-funny days
at Stanford, winning once in 12 contests one year.
“In my first start, I think we
gained 52 yards of total offense
against Arizona at home,” Marinelli
said. “The team had a lot of young
guys and had minimal success. After coach took over it didn’t seem so
far away. We knew it was an attainable goal and this wasn’t our final
goal by any means.
“Especially for the fifth year guys,
having the opportunity to extend the
season is awesome,” he added. “To
be part of that, to make it here is a
great opportunity.”
Gerhart said that the whole experience is like enjoying Christmas
every day.
“It’s more like a professional atmosphere; staying in a hotel, school
is out and it’s 100 percent football,”
Gerhart said. “Normally we’re at
home this time of the year watching bowl games on television. We’re
enjoying it all.”
Even with seniors like offensive
lineman Allen Smith and linebacker
Clinton Snyder on the sideline with
injuries, the experience is special.
“Things get emotional anyway
but it was particularly hard for him,”
Marinelli said of Snyder. “A player
of that magnitude, who was steady
and never missed anything, it was
painful to go through that with him.
He’s got NFL potential and I hope
he rebounds from his injury. He’s
been great. He’s always around the
locker room and at meetings. He’s
helping the young guys set a foundation. Clint has been a catalyst for
all that.” ■

record, while the bottom half have
combined to go 37-19.
“I think Johnny is going to have a
great team,” Cal coach Mike Montgomery said of Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins at the conference media
day. “Johnny is in the process of
having a very good recruiting class.
It’s just a matter of time before he
gets the players he wants. It’s hard to
sustain year after year. Lute Olson
did it at Arizona and Ben Howland
is doing it at UCLA now.”
Of Stanford’s six losses, four have
been by fewer than 10 points. The
Toreros and Red Raiders are the only
teams with double-digit wins over
the Cardinal, and both won by 13.
Perhaps the most galling are the
two home losses. Oral Roberts won
on a buzzer beater and Oklahoma
State won when a Stanford shot at
the final horn went awry.
As Dawkins keeps pointing out,
it’s all a process.
Landry Fields scored 27 points,
one off his career high, and grabbed
11 rebounds in the loss to Texas
Tech. Jeremy Green added a careerhigh 24 points to go with eight rebounds.
Fields, who became the first Stan-

ford player to score at least 20 points
in seven straight games in nearly 17
years, recorded his fifth doubledouble on the year but it wasn’t
enough to overcome a sluggish start
to the second half.
Former NBA star Adam Keefe, in
1992-93, recorded seven consecutive games of at least 20 points for
the Cardinal.
Fields scored to tie the game at
38-all heading into the final minute
of the first half. The 23rd-ranked
Red Raiders then scored the final
four points of the half and opened a
14-point early in the second half.
The Cardinal committed 34 fouls
on the heels of 28 fouls against
Northwestern earlier in the week.
Jack Trotter, Green and Andrew
Zimmerman each fouled out against
Texas Tech.
The Red Raiders (10-1) took their
biggest lead at 85-67 when Díwalyn Roberts hit a layup with 4:30
remaining.
The Cardinal cut the led to 9587 when Elliott Bullock stole the
ball from Darko Cohadarevic and
Gabriel Harris hit a 3-pointer with
1:01 left. That was as close as Stanford got. ■

The freshman center scored
59 points and grabbed 39
rebounds during a 2-1 basketball finish that earned
the Knights second place in
the San Lorenzo Valley tourney, where she was named
to the all-tournament team.

The sophomore wrestler
went 5-0 during the week,
getting a pin in a dual-meet
victory over Saratoga before
going 4-0 (with two pins)
while winning the 112-pound
title as the No. 5 seed at
the two-day Coast Classic.

Honorable mention
Felicia Anderson

Ty Cobb

Eastside Prep basketball

Takara Burse

Sacred Heart Prep basketball

Alex Peyser

Eastside Prep basketball

Whitney Hooper

Woodside Priory basketball

Ethan Plant

Menlo basketball

Palo Alto soccer

Emma Paye

Max Simon

Menlo basketball

Palo Alto wrestling

Natasha von Kaeppler
Castilleja basketball

Gabor Somogyi
Woodside Priory basketball

Eve Zelinger*

Stefan Weidemann*

Castilleja basketball

Gunn wrestling
* previous winner

To see video interviews of the Athletes of the Week, go to www.PASportsOnline.com

PREP ROUNDUP

Basketball teams need some
momentum heading into 2010

L

ocal high school teams have
one more week to gather some
momentum before heading
into 2010. Right now, things aren’t
looking too merry for such prospects.
It appears 2009 will be ending
with more of a whimper than a
bang, with no basketball tournament titles won. The Menlo girls
and Palo Alto boys have come the
closest with runnerup finishes, with
Paly accomplishing that twice.
The most recent tournament to
conclude was the Nike Tournament
of Champions in Arizona, where
the Pinewood girls went just 1-3.
The Panthers (6-4), who have been
hit hard by season-ending injuries,
did get 64 points and 35 rebounds
in the four games from junior Hailie
Eackles.
The Gunn boys’ basketball team
finished seventh at the annual Fremont/Sunnyvale Holiday Tournament with a 61-39 win over Wilcox
on Tuesday night. The Titans (6-4)
got 17 points from senior forward

Simon Hauser in the final game.
Gunn went 2-2 in the tourney.
The Sacred Heart Prep boys
played for third place in the Scattini Memorial Tournament at Palma
High in Salinas after dropping a 4933 decision to Buchanan (Fresno)
during Tuesday’s semifinals. Reed
McConnell tossed in 14 points but
the Gators (5-4) had one of their
poorest offensive showings.
The Menlo boys fell to 1-2 overall
after dropping a 69-39 to host Bellarmine in the D.J. Frandsen Memorial Tournament on Tuesday night.
Perhaps the last hope for any local
basketball team to grab momentum
into the new year will come from
Castilleja, which opens the Head
Royce Holiday Classic on Monday
morning. The Gators are 8-1 heading into their opener and have been
playing some exciting ball this season.
Also playing well has been the
Eastside Prep girls’ basketball team,
which is 7-2 heading into the West
Coast Jamboree starting Dec. 28. ■

Local TV premiere
for film about Rick
Walker’s legislative
struggles after being
cleared of murder

Above: Rick Walker in a Weekly photo from
last year. Below: Walker stands between
filmmakers Mark Ligon and Gwen Essegian
after an emotional three-and-a-half-hour
interview for the movie. (Walker has a tissue
in his left hand.)

by Rebecca Wallace

S

ix-and-a-half years after Rick Walker’s release from prison, where he
had served 12 years for a murder he
didn’t commit, two filmmakers are continuing to spread his story.
Mark Ligon and Gwen Essegian have
seen their documentary “$100 a Day” air
on TV and win awards at film festivals.
On Sunday, Dec. 27, it will have its KQED
television premiere. When the holidays are
over, they hope to arrange screenings in
local classrooms. They’ve always hoped
the film could be a teaching tool.
“Rick gave it the best compliment when
he called it a civics lesson,” Essegian
says.
Walker’s story has been widely told: how
at the age of 35 in 1991, the East Palo Alto
man was convicted of killing 34-year-old
Lisa Hopewell. He was released in 2003 after being proved, as the court put it, “factually innocent,” following a long campaign
by his relatives and Palo Alto’s Tucher family, especially attorney Alison Tucher.
What many people don’t know about is
another struggle Walker faced after prison. Under state law, Walker, having been
exonerated, was entitled to receive $100
for each day he spent falsely imprisoned.
Yet the payment required special legisla-

tive approval, and the bill affecting him
got mired in partisan wrangling during a
late-night legislative session in September
2003.
Much of “$100 a Day” focuses on the drama on the state Assembly floor, and on the
major role played by State Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, who was then an assemblyman. Making use of Assembly footage
of the proceedings, the film shows Simitian
working to win his colleagues’ votes.
“When Mr. Walker was arrested, he had a
good job as a self-employed mechanic. ...
Today he has no home, no job, no income
and no assets,” Simitian says at one point.
“During the 12 years that he was incarcerated, his son grew up, and his father died.
It is very rare on this floor of this house,
members, that we have an opportunity to
set a wrong right.”
The film builds drama, jumping from the
legislative scene to later interviews with
other representatives and Sacramento
Bee reporter Jim Sanders. Finally, at 3:30
a.m., the bill passes. Walker will ultimately
get $421,000 from the state to recompense
him for the 12 years.
(In 2007, Walker also won $2.75 million
(continued on next page)

from a lawsuit against Santa Clara
County.)
When Essegian worked for Simitian in 2004, his staff members
were still talking about Walker. As

a filmmaker, she was intrigued.
Essegian and Ligon run onTopix
Productions in Santa Cruz, where
they make corporate, arts and educational videos as well as documentaries. In 2007, they started working
on â&#x20AC;&#x153;$100 a Dayâ&#x20AC;?; they took Walker
to lunch to see if they could arrange

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The Bowman program builds
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academic excellence.

an interview. They were taken with
his story and his passion, Ligon
says.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;You just never know what kind
of interview people will be. Rick is
very open,â&#x20AC;? he says.
At one point in the film, Walker
speaks quietly about his early days
in prison, behind the doors and
locks, immersed in the noise behind bars. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And then at 10 oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock
at night,â&#x20AC;? he says, â&#x20AC;&#x153;there was this
eerie silence.â&#x20AC;?
Others interviewed are Alison
Tucher and other attorneys â&#x20AC;&#x201D; including George Kennedy, who was
Santa Clara Countyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s district attorney when Walker was convicted,
and calls the conviction â&#x20AC;&#x153;one of the
worst things of my life.â&#x20AC;?
The filmmakers decided to focus on the Sacramento segment
of Walkerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s story in part, as Ligon
says, â&#x20AC;&#x153;to explore what it looks like
when these two monolithic systems
of our government â&#x20AC;&#x201D; judicial and
legislative â&#x20AC;&#x201D; meet a real person.â&#x20AC;?
The two also hoped to make a
film that could spark classroom discussion. They have an educational
distributor, Films Media Group in
New Jersey, and have sent DVDs to
social-studies teachers throughout
Santa Clara, San Mateo and Santa
Cruz counties. They are also interested in screening the film at prisons, and may continue to focus on
judicial issues. The pair may make
a future film about science and politics colliding, Essegian says, adding, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Advancements in DNA helped
prove Rickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s innocence.â&#x20AC;?
â&#x20AC;&#x153;$100 a Dayâ&#x20AC;? has also been making the film-festival rounds. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s won
awards including the Most Socially
Engaging Documentary (Short)
from the Eugene International Film
Festival in Oregon, and the Jury and
Audience Award for Best Documentary (Short) at the Sacramento Film
and Music Festival.
Ligon and Essegian have appeared at screenings, sometimes
with Walker. Responses have varied. One viewer said they were too
easy on the D.A.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office; another
congratulated them on getting the
D.A. to admit to the huge mistake.
The filmmakers say the mix of responses shows theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing their
jobs. They say they seek to paint
a broad picture rather than taking
sides.
Still, it was hard not to feel for
Walker, Ligon says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;$100 a day
isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t enough ... and to have to struggle to get that meager amount is sort
of shocking and woefully wrong.â&#x20AC;?
Ultimately, Ligon says he finds
the film has an uplifting note. Institutions locked up Walker, but they
also freed him.
The film also shows Simitian and
Alison Tucher â&#x20AC;&#x201D; who started working on the case back when she was a
law student â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as heroes. Of Tucher,
Ligon says, â&#x20AC;&#x153;She canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get enough
credit, ever.â&#x20AC;? N
Info: â&#x20AC;&#x153;$100 a Dayâ&#x20AC;? will be shown
at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 27,
on KQED channel 9HD. For more,
go to www.ontopix.com.
Rick Walker was featured in a
Weekly cover story last year. Go
to www.PaloAltoOnline.com, click
on â&#x20AC;&#x153;Palo Alto Weeklyâ&#x20AC;? and go to
the Oct. 10, 2008, issue.

Movies

OPENINGS

Jude Law, left, and Robert Downey Jr. in “Sherlock Holmes.”

Sherlock Holmes ---1/2

(Century 16, Century 20) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary sleuth gets a cinematic
adrenaline shot for this wildly entertaining
and action-packed mystery. British director
Guy Ritchie (“Snatch”) makes a welcome
return to quality filmmaking after several
flops, revitalizing Holmes and his steadfast
sidekick Dr. Watson for a new generation of
filmgoers.
Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) is the private
investigator du jour in turn-of-the-century
England. The often eccentric but always
brilliant Holmes works alongside his colleague Dr. John Watson (Jude Law) to solve

unsolvable crimes. Case in point: Convicted
killer Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) seems
to have cheated death through the use of dark
magic, and his unexplainable powers have
forced the populace into a frenzied panic.
Blackwood isn’t Holmes’ only concern.
Holmes’ old flame and former adversary
Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) resurfaces
with a request to find a missing man. As Holmes desperately tries to stave off his feelings
for Adler, he begins to realize the two cases
are linked. Furthermore, Watson’s forthcoming nuptials may spell the end of his partnership with Holmes.
And a mysterious, manipulative professor

lurks in the shadows.
As a longtime fan of Doyle’s tales, I’ll admit I was initially skeptical about this actionoriented rendition. Sherlock Holmes is my
favorite literary character and I worried that
he would suffer in the hands of an American
actor and an inconsistent director. But my
fears were quashed in the first five minutes.
Downey Jr. is exceptional as the iconic detective and Law comfortably fills the shoes
of Dr. Watson. The two make a perfect pair,
rivaling some of the best big-screen buddies
of the past two decades.
This Holmes is an adept fighter, skills
Doyle only alluded to in print. Holmes’ unparalleled deductive-reasoning abilities and
knowledge of human anatomy enable him to
anticipate punches and quickly neutralize attackers. The on-screen combat — a proven
strength of Ritchie’s — is a welcome addition
and helps energize and accelerate the story.
Ritchie and company are careful not to stray
too much from Doyle’s original vision, perfectly depicting Holmes’ observation and
deductive-reasoning prowess and ensuring
that his familiar pipe is never out of reach.
The music by Oscar magnet Hans Zimmer
is tremendous. The only slippery slope for

“Sherlock” is that it feels somewhat akin to
a superhero flick. The plot is a little generic
and although Strong makes a good villain,
his Lord Blackwood is too one-dimensional.
Clues sprinkled throughout the film lead
to an exciting climax — “Sherlock” is well
worth investigating.
Rated PG-13 for violence and action, startling images and a scene of suggestive material. 2 hours, 14 minutes.
— Tyler Hanley

Nine -1/2

(Century 20) Rob Marshall (of “Chicago”
fame) lays a big Christmas goose-egg with
this frazzled and frenetic adaptation of the
1982 stageplay of the same name.
Daniel Day-Lewis does his charming best
to carry this misogynist tale, based on Fellini’s classic “8½,” as famous — and infamous
— film director Guido Contini who has a disabling case of writer’s block. His new film
“Italia” will star Italian bombshell Claudia
(Nicole Kidman), but it’s anyone’s guess over
the advent of a script, a story or a start date.
While juggling the cosmic complexities of
cinéma vérité, Guido semi-balances a hefty
love life that includes ex-leading lady and cur-

Local movie times and locations, along
with links to trailers, are on Palo Alto
Online. Go to www.PaloAltoOnline.com/
movies.

Movies
are so often mired in gloomy agony
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and the man can carry a tune of
sorts. Cruz brings a refreshing fire
to her neglected lover and Cotillard
does her level best as the scorned
wife who describes her wayward
mate in one damning phrase: â&#x20AC;&#x153;an
appetite.â&#x20AC;?
Kidman is wasted, her uncomfortably slinky sashay distracting. Dench
adds grace but the part is all wrong
for her soberly brilliant gifts.
The scripting is tired and repetitive, the migraine-inducing music
lacks magic (hello, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a musical!)
and the narrative structureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a mess.
What should have been one of the
best films of the year is one of the
worst â&#x20AC;&#x201D; color me bummed.

(continued from previous page)

rent wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard),
neurotic mistress Carla (PenĂŠlope
Cruz) and the aforementioned starlet
with whom Guido has had relations.
Add the sultry ghost of his beloved
mother (Sophia Loren), a kittenish
Vogue reporter (Kate Hudson) and
voice-of-reason costume designer
Lilli (Judi Dench) and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got
yourself one exacting harem.
The petulant philanderer attempts
to get his mojo back and put the
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Maestroâ&#x20AC;? back on top while the
rest of us are subjected to a series
of strident, overwrought dance numbers with little in the way of catch
or class. The project looks luscious
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with fantastically cluttered sets
and the casual cool of 1960s Rome
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but the insecurities of a worldclass alley cat are more superficially
disconcerting than entertaining.
I confess to enjoying Day-Lewisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;
smile â&#x20AC;&#x201D; his tortured anti-heroes

(Aquarius) Little actually happens
in â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Single Man,â&#x20AC;? fashion designer
Tom Fordâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s debut film about a gay
British expatriate living in Santa
Monica in 1962. And yet everything
happens in one day in the life of
George Falconer (Colin Firth): grief,
love, remembrance, work, fear ...
Jim (Matthew Goode), Georgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
longtime lover, has been killed in
an accident, and George sees little
reason to continue living. But he
goes through the motions, teaching
at the college where he works, visiting his best friend, Charley (Julianne
Moore), letting himself be pursued
by a student who wants to confide
in him, and perhaps more.
Much of the film is shot in closeups, and Colin Firth, restrained and
seemingly cool, betrays passion in
subtle ways. The shots of his face
when he hears the news of his loverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s death, via telephone, should be
a lesson in battened-down shock and
grief for any acting student. Eduard
Grauâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cinematography is sensual
without being explicit, and Polishborn Abel Korzeniowskiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s musical
score â&#x20AC;&#x201D; lots of strings, some piano
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; is lush but not overpowering.
Being a â&#x20AC;&#x153;single manâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; or, as
Georgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s neighbor puts it, â&#x20AC;&#x153;light in
his loafersâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in 1962, the era of
bouffant hairdos and the Cuban missile crisis, was a very different matter than it is today, at least in Santa
Monica. Fordâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s script, from a novel
by Christopher Isherwood, captures
not only the pain, both hidden and
overt, of one gay man, but also some
of the repressive spirit of the time
just before the sexual revolution
changed everything.
In two respects â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Single Manâ&#x20AC;?

is untrue to its subject. No college
professor could afford to live in a
gorgeous, modern glass-and-wood
house like Georgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s; and, even in
1962, he would never go to work in
beautifully tailored suits and highly
polished shoes.
Rated R for nudity, some disturbing images and sexual content. One
hour, 39 minutes.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Renata Polt

Broken Embraces ---

(Guild) For some time, Spanish
director Pedro AlmodĂłvar has been
on a winning streak, his handsome
and comfortably budgeted films
garnering critical praise and strong
box-office from the art-house crowd.
The streak continues with â&#x20AC;&#x153;Broken
Embraces,â&#x20AC;? though with less force.
Even in all its media-fueled mania, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Broken Embracesâ&#x20AC;? cultivates
the sense that its writer-director isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t
working at the full creative capacity represented by his turn-of-thecentury hat-trick: â&#x20AC;&#x153;All About My
Mother,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Talk to Herâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bad
Education.â&#x20AC;?
AlmodĂłvarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s narrative for â&#x20AC;&#x153;Broken Embracesâ&#x20AC;? resembles that of his
best films, like a mountain road with
hairpin turns. The Madrid-set tale
begins in 2008, then bounces back
and forth from the early 1990s. The
constant is the protagonist, Harry
Caine (LluĂ­s Homar), a blind screenwriter still troubled by the events that
led to his blindness and, with it, the
abandonment of his film-directing
career. The blindness is, of course,
also symbolic of the insecurity of
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Harryâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; real name Mateo â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in
dealing with his reality and his art.

In the present, Harry has created
for himself a comfortably safe existence, enabled by his onetime producer/now assistant Judit (Blanca
Portillo) and her teenage son Diego (Tamar Novas). A screenwriter
calling himself â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ray Xâ&#x20AC;? (RubĂŠn
Ochandiano) arrives out of the blue
and wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take â&#x20AC;&#x153;noâ&#x20AC;? for an answer
to his request for Harryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s help penning â&#x20AC;&#x153;a sonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s revenge on his fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
memory.â&#x20AC;?
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ray Xâ&#x20AC;? turns out to be the son
of the man responsible for Harryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
current miseries, which we learn as
AlmodĂłvar flashes back to 1992 and
then 1994. Here, we watch as Mateo
makes a film â&#x20AC;&#x201D; starring gorgeous
discovery Lena (PenĂŠlope Cruz) â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
that will turn out to be the figurative
death of him. For â&#x20AC;&#x153;Harry Caineâ&#x20AC;?
has, consciously or not, named himself after the hurricane, the powerful wind of fate that blew his life off
course and makes him empathetic
to survivors.
Director of photography Rodrigo
Prieto and costume designer Sonia
Grande aid and abet AlmodĂłvarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
lush visual style, which â&#x20AC;&#x201D; along
with the elements of mystery and
torrid sex â&#x20AC;&#x201D; gooses â&#x20AC;&#x153;Broken Embracesâ&#x20AC;? through its generous 128minute running time. This isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the
first time AlmodĂłvar has explored
cinema and its power to change
lives, but for all its colorful visuals and narrative sophistication, the
story feels more insular than ever.
One could not be blamed for asking of this new art-house piece,
â&#x20AC;&#x153;What does any of this have to do
with real life?â&#x20AC;? One could say the
same of the exaggerated but artistically exciting noir thrillers and
Douglas Sirk melodramas that inspire AlmodĂłvar, but at least most of
those didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t compound their insularity by being about film directors.
At times â&#x20AC;&#x153;Broken Embracesâ&#x20AC;?
seems like expensive art therapy for
its maker. As the directorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surrogate
Harry puts it: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Everythingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s already
happened to me. All I have left is to
enjoy life.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Broken Embracesâ&#x20AC;? is
enjoyable enough, but all the same,
AlmodĂłvar would do well to emulate his own protagonist and move
further out of his safety zone.

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OR 20 FEET, NORTH 85°40` EAST,
FROM THE ORIGINAL 6’’ X 6’’ POST
MARKED ‘’B.46` WHICH IS AT THE
MOST NORTHWESTERLY CORNER OF
LOT 19 OF SAID SUBDIVISION; THENCE
AT A RIGHT ANGLE NORTH 4°20`
WEST, 0.305 CHAINS, OR 20 FEET, TO
A POINT; THENCE AT A RIGHT ANGLE
SOUTH 85°40` WEST, 0.28 CHAINS TO
A POINT WHICH BEARS NORTH 0°25`
WEST, 0.303 CHAINS OR 20 FEET
FROM THE ORIGINAL CORNER ‘’B.46’’
AFORESAID; THENCE SOUTH 89°35`
WEST PARALLEL TO THE SOUTHERLY
BOUNDARY OF THE A. C. JOHNSTON
(FORMERLY LACY) 200 ACRE TRACT,
4.397 CHAINS TO A POINT DISTANT
0.303 CHAINS OR 20 FEET FROM
THE WESTERLY BOUNDARY OF SAID
A. C. JOHNSTON (FORMERLY LACY)
TRACT THENCE NORTH 0°40` WEST,
PARALLEL TO AND DISTANT 20 FEET
EASTERLY FROM THE WESTERLY
BOUNDARY OF SAID A. C. JOHNSTON
TRACT, 4.447 CHAINS TO A POINT;
THENCE AT A RIGHT ANGLE SOUTH
89°20` WEST, 0.303 CHAINS OR 20
FEET, TO A POINT ON THE WESTERLY
LINE OF SAID A. C. JOHNSTON TRACT,
SAID LINE BEING ALSO THE EASTERLY
LINE OF THE PAGE MILL ROAD;
THENCE ALONG SAID WESTERLY
LINE OF SAID A. C. JOHNSTON 200
ACRE TRACT SOUTH 0°40` EAST,
4.75 CHAINS TO THE ORIGINAL
SOUTHWESTERLY CORNER ‘’B.47’’
OF SAID A. C. JOHNSTON (FORMERLY
LACY) TRACT; THENCE NORTH 89Âº35`
EAST, ALONG THE SOUTHERLY
BOUNDARY OF SAID A. C. JOHNSTON
TRACT, 4.70 CHAINS TO THE ORIGINAL
CORNER OF 6’’ X 6’’ POST ‘’B.46’’ OF
THE TAAFFE PARTITION AFORESAID;
THENCE NORTH 85°40` EAST 0.303
CHAINS OR 20 FEET TO THE PLACE
OF BEGINNING. PARCEL THREE: AN
EASEMENT FOR INGRESS AND EGRESS
OVER THE FOLLOWING DESCRIBED
PARCEL OF LAND: BEGINNING AT
A POINT ON THE NORTHERLY LINE
OF LOT 19, SAID LINE BEING ALSO
THE SOUTHERLY LINE OF A 20 ACRE
PIECE OWNED BY JERREY SMITH AND
ELIZABETH SMITH, DISTANT ALONG
SAID LINE NORTH 85°33` 30’’ EAST
20 FEET FROM THE MOST WESTERLY
CORNER OF SAID LOT 19, SAID LOT
BEING AS SHOWN UPON THAT CERTAIN
MAP ENTITLED, ‘’MAP OF SUBDIVISION
OF LOT 2 AND PART OF LOT 1 OF
THE TAAFFE PARTITION’’ FILED IN THE
OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE
COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA, STATE OF
CALIFORNIA, IN BOOK ‘’H’’ AT PAGES
76 AND 77; THENCE FROM SAID
POINT OF BEGINNING ALONG SAID
NORTHERLY LINE NORTH 85°33` 30’’
EAST 67.22 FEET; THENCE NORTH
48°30` WEST 27.83 FEET; THENCE
SOUTH 85°33` 30’’ WEST 47.87 FEET;
THENCE SOUTH 4°26` 30’’ EAST 20
FEET TO THE POINT OF BEGINNING.
Amount of unpaid balance and other
charges: $1,727,515.97(estimated)
Street address and other common
designation of the real property:
MIDDLEFORK LANE LOS ALTOS HILLS,
CA 94024 APN Number: 182-10-050
The undersigned Trustee disclaims
any liability for any incorrectness of
the street address and other common
designation, if any, shown herein.
The property heretofore described
is being sold “as is”. DECLARATION
PURSUANT TO CALIFORNIA CIVIL
CODE SECTION 2923.54 Pursuant to
California Civil Code Section 2923.54,
the undersigned loan servicer declares
as follows: 1. It has obtained from the
commissioner a final or temporary
order of exemption pursuant to Section
2923.54 that is current and valid on the
date the notice of sale is filed; and 2.
The timeframe for giving notice of sale
specified in subdivision (a) of Section
2923.52 does not apply pursuant to
Section 2923.52 or Section 2923.55.
DATE: 12-24-2009 CALIFORNIA
RECONVEYANCE COMPANY, as
Trustee (714) 730-2727 or www.
fidelityasap.com (714) 573-1965 or
www.priorityposting.com Deborah
Brignac CALIFORNIA RECONVEYANCE
COMPANY IS A DEBT COLLECTOR
ATTEMPTING TO COLLECT A DEBT.
ANY INFORMATION OBTAINED WILL BE
USED FOR THAT PURPOSE. DEBORAH
BRIGNAC, VICE PRESIDENT 9200
OAKDALE AVE MAILSTOP N110612
CHATSWORTH, CA 91311
ASAP# 3374631
PAW 12/25/2009, 01/01/2010,
01/08/2010
NOTICE OF TRUSTEE'S SALE Title
Order No.: 203407 Trustee Sale No.:
67162 Loan No.: 9042027649/001
APN: 153-37-089 You are in Default
under a Deed of Trust dated
11/17/2005. Unless you take action
to protect your property, it may be sold
at a public sale. If you need an explanation of the nature of the proceedings
against you, you should contact a law-

yer. On 01/07/2010 at 10:00AM, DSL
Service Company as the duly appointed
Trustee under and pursuant to Deed of
Trust Recorded 11/23/2005 Instrument
# 18691465 of official records in
the Office of the Recorder of Santa
Clara County, California, executed by:
Anita Maharaj An Unmarried Woman,
as Trustor Downey Savings and Loan
Association, F.A., as Beneficiary WILL
SELL AT PUBLIC AUCTION TO THE
HIGHEST BIDDER FOR CASH (payable
at time of sale in lawful money of the
United States, by cash, a cashier’s
check drawn by a state or national
bank, a check drawn by a state or
federal credit union, or a check drawn
by a state or federal savings and loan
association, savings association, or
savings bank specified in section 5102
of the Financial Code and authorized
to do business in this state). At the
North Market Street entrance to the
County Courthouse, 190 North Market
Street, San Jose, CA, all right, title and
interest conveyed to and now held by
it under said Deed of Trust in the property situated in said County, California
describing the land therein: As more
fully described in said Deed of Trust.
The property heretofore described is
being sold “as is”. The street address
and other common designation, if any,
of the real property described above
is purported to be: 928 Wright Avenue
207, Mountain View CA 94043. The
undersigned Trustee disclaims any
liability for any incorrectness of the
street address and other common
designation, if any, shown herein.
Said sale will be made, but without
covenant or warranty, expressed or
implied, regarding title, possession, or
encumbrances, to pay the remaining
principal sum of the note(s) secured
by said Deed of Trust, with interest
thereon, as provided in said note(s),
advances, if any, under the terms of the
Deed of Trust, estimated fees, charges
and expenses of the Trustee and of the
trusts created by said Deed of Trust, towit: $651,772.33 (Estimated) Accrued
interest and additional advances, if any,
will increase this figure prior to sale.
The beneficiary under said Deed of
Trust heretofore executed and delivered
to the undersigned a written Declaration
of Default and Demand for Sale, and a
written Notice of Default and Election
to Sell. The undersigned caused said
Notice of Default and Election to Sell
to be recorded in the county where the
real property is located and more than
three months have elapsed since such
recordation. Regarding the property
that is the subject of this notice of sale,
the "mortgage loan servicer" as defined
in California Civil Code § 2923.53(k)
(3), declares that it has obtained from
the Commissioner a final or temporary order of exemption pursuant to
California Civil Code section 2923.53
and that the exemption is current and
valid on the date this notice of sale is
recorded. The timeframe for giving a
Notice of Sale specified in Subdivision
(a) of Section 2923.52 does not apply
to this Notice of Sale pursuant to
California Civil Code Sections 2923.52
or 2923.55. Date: 12/10/09 For: DSL
Service Company, as Trustee By: FCI
Lender Services, Inc., as Agent 8180
East Kaiser Blvd., Anaheim Hills, CA
92808 U.S. Bank National Association,
Customer Service Department (949)
798-6002 For Trustee Sale Information
log on to: www.rsvpforeclosures.com
or call: 925-603-7342. Vivian Prieto,
Vice President FCI Lender Services, Inc.
is a debt collector attempting to collect
a debt. Any information obtained will be
used for that purpose. (RSVP# 181328)
(PAW 12/18/09, 12/25/09, 01/01/10)
NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER
ESTATE OF: PATRICIA RYAN
MOSBACHER aka PATRICIA R
MOSBACHER
Case No. 1-09-PR 166150
To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors,
contingent creditors, and persons who
may otherwise be interested in the
will or estate, or both, of: PATRICIA
RYAN MOSBACHER aka PATRICIA R
MOSBACHER.
A Petition for Probate has been filed by:
RICHARD BRUCE MOSBACHER in the
Superior Court of California, County of:
SANTA CLARA.
The Petition for Probate requests that:
RICHARD BRUCE MOSBACHER be
appointed as personal representative to
administer the estate of the decedent.
The petition requests the decedent’s
will and codicils, if any, be admitted to
probate. The will and any codicils are
available for examination in the file kept
by the court.
The petition requests authority to
administer the estate under the
Independent Administration of Estates
Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions
without obtaining court approval. Before

MARKETPLACE the printed version of
TM

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taking certain very important actions,
however, the personal representative
will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived
notice or consented to the proposed
action.) The independent administration
authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the
petition and shows good cause why the
court should not grant the authority.
A HEARING on the petition will be
held on February 1, 2010 at 9:00
a.m. in Dept. 3 of the Superior Court
of California, County of Santa Clara,
located at 191 North First Street, San
Jose, CA 95113.
If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing
and state your objections or file written
objections with the court before the
hearing. Your appearance may be in
person or by your attorney.
If you are a creditor or a contingent
creditor of the decedent, you must
file your claim with the court and mail
a copy to the personal representative
appointed by the court within four
months from the date of first issuance
of letters as provided in Probate Code
section 9100. The time for filing claims
will not expire before four months from
the hearing date noticed above.
You may examine the file kept by the
court. If you are a person interested in
the estate, you may file with the court
a Request for Special Notice (form
DE-154) of the filing of an inventory
and appraisal of estate assets or of
any petition or account as provided in
Probate Code section 1250. A Request
for Special Notice form is available
from the court clerk.
Attorney for Petitioner:
/s/ Myron G. Sugarman (41127)
Sandra Price (91624)
Cooley Godward Kronish LLP
101 California Street, 5th Floor,
San Francisco, CA 94111-5800
(415)693-2019
(PAW Dec. 25, 2009, Jan. 1, 8, 2010)
NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR CHANGE
IN OWNERSHIP OF ALCOHOLIC
BEVERAGE LICENSE
Date of Filing Application:
December 21, 2009
To Whom It May Concern:
The Name(s) of the Applicant(s) is/are:
FISCHER ROBERT SCOTT
The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic
Beverage Control to sell alcoholic
beverages at:
180 EL CAMINO REAL 2A
PALO ALTO, CA 94304
Type of license(s) applied for:
41 - ON-SALE BEER AND WINE - EATING
PLACE
(PAW Dec. 25, 2009)
NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL
ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES
Date of Filing Application:
December 7, 2009
To Whom It May Concern:
The Name(s) of Applicant(s) is/are:
WALGREEN CO
The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic
Beverage Control to sell alcoholic
beverages at:
2605 MIDDLEFIELD RD
PALO ALTO, CA 94306-2516
Type of license(s) Applied for:
20 - OFF-SALE BEER AND WINE
(PAW Dec. 25, 2009, Jan. 1, 8, 2010)
NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL
ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES
Date of Filing Application:
December 7, 2009
To Whom It May Concern:
The Name(s) of Applicant(s) is/are:
WALGREEN CO
The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic
Beverage Control to sell alcoholic
beverages at:
4170 EL CAMINO REAL
PALO ALTO, CA 94306-4008
Type of license(s) Applied for:
20 - OFF-SALE BEER AND WINE
(PAW Dec. 25, 2009, Jan. 1, 8, 2010)
NOTICE TO CREDITORS
OF BULK SALE
(Secs. 6104, 6105 U.C.C.)
12-11-2009
Notice is hereby given to creditors
of the within named seller that a bulk
sale is about to be made of the assets
described below.
The names and business addresses of
the seller are: Hon Thanh Tran and Rui
Fang Su
3890 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA
94306
The location in California of the chief
executive office of the seller is: Same
as above
As listed by the seller, all other business names and addresses used by the
seller within three years before the date
such list was sent or delivered to the
buyer are: NONE

The names and business addresses of
the buyer are:
Chio Ung Aut Cai, 3890 El Camino
Real, Palo Alto, CA 94306
The assets to be sold are described in
general as: All Fixtures and Equipments,
Machines and Appliances, Licenses and
Permits, Business Goodwill and Other
Intangibles of that Restaurant Business
and are located at: 3890 El Camino
Real, Palo Alto, CA 94306
The business name used by the seller
at that location is: L & L Hawaiian
Barbecue.
The anticipated date of the bulk sale
is Jan 8, 2010 at the office of LAW
OFFICES OF GERALD LAM.
This bulk sale is subject to California
Uniform Commercial Code Section
6106.2.
If so subject, the name and address of
the person with whom claims may be
filed is LAW OFFICES OF GERALD LAM,
1407 Webster St., #216, Oakland,
CA 94612, and the last date for filing
claims shall be 1/7/2010, which is
the business day before the sale date
specified above.
Dated: 12/11/2009
Chio Ung Aut Cai, Buyer
12/25/09CNS-1763870#
PALO ALTO WEEKLY

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